I wrote a few weeks ago about a meeting that some of us had in our school district around angling technology towards the center of the identity of our school district. I kept thinking about it and worried that if no one followed up on the meeting, the whole idea would just sputter out to nothing. There is still that possibilities, but I wrote down my own ideas for the school district administration and shared them this week on an Etherpad document, urging the principals and superintendents to collaborate on it (nothing yet).
Here were some of my main points of my manifesto:
Goals: How we do make our use of technology in the Hampshire Regional Schools more visible to the public (inside and outside of Hampshire Regional) and continue to integrate meaningful technology into the classrooms?
Rationale: We have invested, and continue to invest, significant funds into technology purchases in our school district. We “earn” significant money from School of Choice students electing to come here but we also lose significant funds from our students going elsewhere, too. By branding our district as one that is infused with technology and innovation, we have the opportunity to create an identity as a district that is preparing students for the world of the future. Beyond the marketing concept, the creation of this identity might help more teachers take the first steps into using technology in meaningful ways because they want to identify with the goals of the district.Finally, this shift might open the door for more grant opportunities for our district, as most organizations want to see the groundwork already in place before handing out money.
Audience: the public
Better public relations: Contact newspapers about technology-infused projects that showcase student engagement. Don’t be afraid of the press. Reporters love an easy story, and technology is still flashy for the newspapers. And if they can see kids doing something, creating something — that is even better. Make the reporter’s life easier by getting everything set up and ready for them, and positive stories will get written.
School websites – There should not be a single empty webpage on any of our sites. At the very least, every teacher should have a headshot and a welcome message. An overview of their curriculum would be helpful, too. And any sample projects gives more content to a site. An empty page sends a message that the school is not yet made its way into the 21st Century. Remember: for some teachers, even this step is difficult, but we need to create the illusion at least that we are all tech-savvy.
A unified technology mission statement: It would be nice to have some district-wide mission statement around our views of technology. In my view, the statement needs to be student-centered (remember, our audience is parents here) and engagement with technology for meaningful reasons that enhance our curriculum and prepare students for a world that does not yet exist. The tools are not nearly as important as the students.
I suggest we also create a short, five-minute video documentary of technology in our district that could be placed front and center at our district website and perhaps even on our individual school websites. It could showcase some student projects, some teachers talking about technology integration and give a flavor of some of the work going on. Quality will be the key here.
What about an App? I know this is a stretch, but some schools are starting to develop an App for iTunes that provides a feed of news from a school district. (see this article: http://www.billingsmiddleschool.org/beta/2010/01/20/billings-middle-school-iphone-app-released/) Even if the response is not overwhelming, a Hampshire Regional School District App puts the notion out there that our district is leap-years ahead of other school districts. Of course, then there is the issue of who would be responsible for putting news out there. We don’t want a dead App like we have dead Webpages.
Family Technology Night: Given the rise emerging technologies, it might make sense to have a night for families to come in to our schools and use the technology themselves. We could have parents and students work on a digital story together, for example. It would also provide yet another opportunity to talk about the pros and cons of kids and technology — a realistic view that technology is not the answer, but another tool for engagement.
Audience: the staff
Create a database/collection of successful technology: We know colleagues are using technology but we never get a chance to share or learn from each other. Why not find a simple (ease of use is key here) to collect ideas, lesson plan ideas, websites and contacts from within our district where folks are doing these ideas. We make our teachers the leaders.
Sharing tools/resources: This is similar to the last item. If there are resources out there that are useful, let’s share them with each other. What have my colleagues used that has been successful?
Technology coach/partner: This is a critical piece of the puzzle here. In my experience, there is a group of teachers who may never see the value of technology, and there is a group of teachers who are doing all they can to use technology. It’s the middle group that we want to make the shift — they see the value, but are not ready to do it on their own. We need to find a way to create partnerships or have technology coaches (like a literacy coach) to work with teachers in their classrooms for an extended period of time to plan and implement technology integration into the curriculum.
Technology Across the Curriculum — Teachers need to know that technology is a tool for any curriculum area. It is not a drop-off class, or some enrichment activity for high-achieving students. Technology can have a place in science, in social studies, in math and more. And this technology across the curriculum might lead to more collaboration among teachers, too.
Grade-level Teacher Collaborations — Perhaps the easiest way to begin is to have teachers at a common grade level work together on some unified tech-related project that starts first with collaboration among the teachers, and then extends out to the classroom. For example, students could do a community-based action project that involves some research of the place where they live that has a community service component to the project, and then use a blog or wiki site to post writing, podcasts, video tours, etc, for students in other towns. We could open it up for peer feedback across the schools. (note: this would also be good public relations moment)
Technology as part of any curriculum initiative – Instead of treating technology as an add-on, let’s make it a central part of any curriculum initiative that we do — even if it is as simple as sharing reflections through a collaborative site after a workshop session. I always want to know what my colleagues have taken away from a session. For example, our Literacy Initiative should have a technology component built right into the planning and into any offerings for our teachers.
Professional Reading Groups: It would be helpful if teachers could be encouraged to come together to read articles, books and websites in the form of a reading group/circle. This would allow for more connections among teachers as well as expose more teachers to the developments around technology in education. Ideally, a small stipend would be available for teachers, who would be expected to share out what they learning with colleagues in some fashion. Some recommended books might include: The Digital Writing Workshop by Troy Hicks; The Socially Networked Classroom by William Kist; or Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for the Classroom by Will Richardson. These groups could be a hybrid of face-to-face meetings and using online sites for discussions. A potential bonus: most of these writers will agree to Skype into reading groups to talk about their books with teachers reading and using them.
Ideas to keep in mind:
Equity and access issues for all of our students, not just those with financial means;
Recognize that students communicate/write/read in ways outside of our schools that don’t always translate to learning we do inside of our schools — that is what we want to tap into;
Sharing among colleagues is a critical way to learn and implement new ideas;
Maintenance and upgrades of existing equipment must be worked into any long-range planning. It does us no good to push with technology on machines that are broken or antiquated.
Administrators need to utilize technology to reach parents and community members (I know this is another equity issue, re:hilltowns)
What am I missing here? Is there something your district does that makes a difference in creating a sense of technology integration?
This is a fascinating look at data about the Internet as compiled by Focus, using data from a variety of sources (including the Pew organization). Thanks to Free Tech for Teachers for the link my RSS.
Now that most of our Three Cups of Tea glogs are done (a few still need more work by the students to clean them up with proofreading), I decided to create a space where they could all be collected together for viewing by the world (and parents and family). I know a number of people are using wikis for embedding glogs, but I decided to try out Yola.com — which allows you to construct five free websites and it is built on using widgets.
If you are wondering about this process of creating a website for these kinds of projects, here are some brief steps:
I registered at Yola.com (actually, I already have an account there because I have used it for other projects.) I followed the steps there to create a website, chose a theme and was ready to begin building my site in a few minutes.
I went over to my “classroom” at the edu-glog site andwent through the glogs that were ready to be brought from the “private” setting to the “public” setting. Only a teacher can do this step.
I then found the “embed into page” link below the glog, grabbed the code and went back to my Yola site. There, I inserted an html widget, and copied the embed code.
Now, here is where I fiddled a bit. For some reason, the embed code is always too large, so I tinkered with the settings in the html code — I reduced the percentage to 70 and then adjusted the width and length accordingly. You need to do all three for it work right. I wish there were more embed options on the glogster side of the world.
Once that is done, you can save and check your work. If it seems OK, then go through the process again. And again. I stacked a handful of glogs per page on the Yola site and divided up my four classes into parts so that there were not too many glogs on one page.
If my description doesn’t help, you can also view this video tutorial someone made about embedding a glog into a Google Site website, which is pretty close to using Yola.
But please take a few minutes to check out the glogs of my students — I am pretty impressed with what they were able to accomplish.
Finally … Google has added a thumbnail view to its Google Docs. For visual people, this is a nice way to “see” your files, particularly now that you can upload and share any kind of file now.
In the upper right corner of your Google Docs dashboard, just click the icon for thumbnail view.
This is great news. Prezi – the powerful and creative alternative to Powerpoint dullness — announced that it now has a free license for teachers and students along with an upgraded paid option.
I’d like to investigate this further, since I would LOVE to have my students use the platform for some sort of poetry or writing activity, using “connected paths” to lead the reader on a journey. I am not sure if it is doable because we don’t have any student email accounts.
It also looks like Prezi did some upgrades to its editor, so I will have to play around with that, too. (Remember: Playing is learning.) Here is a Prezi poem that I composed some time back and then forgot about. I was trying to work out how to move the eye of the viewer in and out of the text.
I use Google Docs quite a bit for notes and other things. I am tired of Microsoft Word (I will write about my excursions into Open Office another day). One thing that always amazes me when I open up my Google Docs are all of the collaborative projects going on outside of my account, and yet, I have been included in the share by others.
Tom Barrett is one of the most prolific and if you have not seen his work around getting others to collaborate on a variety of technology and education issues, then you are missing out. (See his blog for a start). But there are others, too, and I appreciate what they start, and often, I will be intrigued by a topic and add my own. This is what collaboration is about, right? We are invited and we accept the invitation.
This morning, I noticed that Tom has a resource around ideas for sparking writing in the classroom. This, of course, interests me greatly, so I read and then after reading, I felt like I should add something. So, I wrote about the use of Poems for Two Voices with students.
Earlier this week, I noticed that Martha had begun a resource around Digital Literacy. She wanted to compile a glossary of terms that we are using and explain them, so she was searching for collaborators. I added the word “glogging” to her file and wrote up a bit of what I know about it.
When you think of it, this kind of collaboration is perfect. I add what I know and I take away what my collaborators know, and we all move forward a few steps. My Google Docs is like a gift under the tree some days. You never know what someone is going to share.
Last week, I ran into two mentions for the ShoutEm Microblogging platform, which allows you to create a sheltered “Twitter” of sorts in which people in your Shout network can post short 140-character pieces. I suggested one of my friends over in the National Writing Project Network create a network to play with, and she did, and I have been playing around as a member of that site (and trying to get other NWP folks involved). I’m not sure we have enough folks using our experimental site to make complete judgments yet.
Here are some thoughts so far:
ShoutEm is easy to use as it mimics Twitter quite a bit. Just write and post and you are connected.
I love that you can easily share links and that screenshots of most the linked sites are shown automatically. This is a great feature and a nice design.
I don’t see any advertising (yet) but I know from the ShoutEm site that creators of the sites can try to make money that way. That would turn me off.
It’s free.
When you reply to someone’s shout, the replies are threaded, making it easy to track a conversation.
There are ways to “subscribe” to another person, but I have not figured out just what the heck that is all about, since I think I see all posts anyway on the homepage.
I believe the entire stream can be embedded into another site, allowing you to have a backchannel of sorts for folks to use around an idea.
I keep thinking of the comparison to a Ning network, for some reason. Perhaps because both allow you to set up niche communities. And Shoutem can be integrated easily enough (they say) with a Ning site.
Which brings me to the crucial point: Is ShoutEm a possibility for the classroom?
Not for me, likely, because our kids don’t have email accounts but I do see some potential for ShoutEm with students. You could have a site set up for discussions around a reading issue (like a blog but on an easier micro scale) or other topics.
Or, I stumbled across this project called TwitterKids, which connected a group of students from Africa with the world through the use of Twitter. I was fascinated by the possibilities of that kind of global connections and thought: ShoutEm might be the way to go for a similar kind of project. You could set up your own microblogging platform for a project, which would keep it sheltered but viable.
Hmmm.
Anyway, here is a video overview of ShoutEm and if you create your own experimental network, let me know. I am always up for posting a few thoughts.
The Read Write Think site by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has been revamped and looks pretty spiffy. There are a whole lot of resources at this site. I’ve used a few — the comic creator, for one, and it is a nice and easy way to get kids creating comics on the computer.
What I like is that all of the activities are sorted in a variety of ways — from grade levels, to types of activities, to learning objectives, and more. Add to that that there are lesson plans and support materials for the various projects, and you have a wonderful place to explore and add new elements to your classroom.
The banner also is inviting to parents, and I like that. I wonder how many parents actually come to the site (who are not teachers) and show it to their own children?
And this flier (pdf) is a nice thing to have on hand to pass out to parents as it extols the virtues of reading and writing beyond the classroom walls, and gives some advice to parents.
The Boston Globe this morning had an interesting piece in the Ideas section about some iPhone Apps for “ideas on the go” that I thought I would share for us literary-minded folks. A few apps I know but most, I don’t.
Instapaper – this app allows you to bookmark articles from various online newspapers for later reading. I have heard about this one (it’s free, so worth a try) but I am not yet on the level of wanting to read my news on my iTouch. Do you?
Newstand – This is an aggregator of RSS feeds for newspapers. The app costs $4.99, so my question is: why buy an app when there are plenty of free RSS collectors out there? I guess the draw is that it focuses in on publications, but free is the way to be (although many are now saying that the wave of free content is exactly what is killing the newspaper industry).
Stanza - This is one I have used. It’s a free ereader and it comes with access to tons of free books. You have to get past the small reading screen but it works fine. And did I mention it is free?
McSweeney’s Small Chair — I do love Dave Egger’s McSweeney’s publishing house and this app pulls from the various publications there. Is it worth a $5.99 investment? Not sure. But this is one I will be checking out and consider the purchase, if only to keep supporting Egger’s publishing efforts.
Electric Literature — It seems like I have read about this one before. The app costs $4.99 but it features anthologies of “named” writers. I would prob avoid it for the cost. Sorry.
IndieBound – This is an app (free!) that uses GPS to find independent book stores. That is something I can support. I do try to mix up my business with books between the small book stores in our area with the Barnes & Nobles. (And Amazon).
There was a mention of something called Scrollmotion’s First Things Last, which is free, and which apparently showcases an interactive serial story. What is that? Now, I need to know.
The three strands of this week’s collaborative storytelling — in Google Wave, on an Etherpad site, and in a closed network of teacher-writers — were brought to an end this morning as I wrapped up the adventures under the title The Datastream.
You can read all three stories together on a Google Docs website that I created. You also have the opportunity to read each story on its own through links that I put on that master document.
I did very little editing or tidying up of the text, although I wanted to re-form the stories to make more sense as we neared the end. That was the editor in me. I resisted the urge, figuring that the way the stories get tangled and untangled is interesting in itself, and part of the process, and I did not want to lose the various voices of the collaborators. I loved how links, images, even Twitter, became part of the Wave story.
I struggled with how to end the three stories, even as I tried to steer the narrative towards each other in the last day or two. It became a science fiction-ized story at that point because I could not see any other way to bring the stories together and to a close. What I did not want was a project that never ends.
Ending are as important as beginnings, right?
I decided that I would write the ending piece as second-person narrative — an attempt to draw the reader into the collaborative experience as much as the writers (and there were more than 20 writers across the platforms collaborating on different strands of the story).
So, the obvious question: does this kind of collaborative story have a place in the classroom?
Absolutely, and as Tracy wrote about on her blog, you don’t need technology. Simply having students write the start of a story on paper, and then pass that paper around the room two or three times (it’s a good way to have them think about plot — one person does exposition, another person takes on rising action, etc.).
A few years ago, I used a wiki for this kind of student collaborative writing over a vacation and the students loved it, although the story made no sense whatsoever. Perhaps it would be good to designate some “student editors” of the story, to do sort of what I did here — gently shaping it.
This story project began because I wanted to know what Google Wave was all about. I figured a collaborative story might make sense, and I did learn a lot about Wave from the story writing. I don’t like Wave all that much but I learned how to use it. Then, it occurred to that I am part of a writing community already — the iAnthology — and why not draw them into the concept? So, a second strand began. Someone complained that they could not access Wave, so I started a third strand over at Etherpad, an online word processor that requires no registration.
You should have seen me bouncing around between the three stories, trying to keep plot lines and characters straight in my head. It was fun but strange, as if I were dancing with three partners to three different styles of music, all at once.
If you were a participant in this particular collaborative adventure, I want to thank you. If you are just a reader, thanks, too. We’re in this together, you know.
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